Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (31 page)

“Sure, man, I’m on it.” Wallace
walked away to try and get a message off to Kun. The loose end of
that last “talk” with Leif still tickled at his brain, though he
couldn’t grab hold of it to remember what it was about. He shrugged
it off for the time being. The more important task was to contact
Kun and let him know what was happening. They had not anticipated
Maeve being triggered so early in this process.

۞

They would need to proceed a lot
more carefully…he didn’t like to think about what might happen if
Leif and the others went active on board a space station. This had
definitely not been thought through well enough. His training as a
handler had never once covered a situation quite like this. He
wondered how much Warden knew about them. It certainly seemed as
though he knew enough to access Maeve without any trouble, if the
theory of the so-called assassin held up.

Wallace was still kicking himself
that he and Kun hadn’t thought of this possibility. It seemed
stupidly obvious in hindsight, but it had genuinely never occurred
to either of them. And now, he ran the risk of being exposed for
what he was before the moment when it was actually practicable.
Jules would be at the head of the line to punch him in the nuts,
were she to realize that he’d been part of an act.

It had surprised him constantly
how readily she’d accepted the explanation that Kun had chosen them
randomly. That he, Wallace, was some kind of amateur bumbler. She
should have seen through it, if anyone could have.

Maeve had been a different story.
He’d known instantly that she wouldn’t sort out what he was doing.
It wasn’t that she’d been naïve. She hadn’t wanted to look too
deep. His task had been simplified by the easy trust she’d granted
him. At first anyway. Until his own head had gotten muddled by
emotion. He’d failed to anticipate just how much that would screw
everything up.

He had prepared himself to arrive
on board the Nimitz and find a way to confess everything to Maeve.
So far, nothing was going according to plan, and there was no
longer any point. Nothing had ever really gone to plan though. If
he’d only been able to see through his end, at least nothing would
have gone so terribly wrong.

That was the demon with which he
lived.

Allowing himself to develop
feelings for Maeve had aloowed both their worlds to come crashing
down. He looked over at Maeve who was not Maeve, and knew he had to
put things to right. It might be long overdue, but it could still
be done. First order of business, deactivate her.

They would have to wait until they
reached Earth to undertake that process. She’d go along with a
pretext more easily than outright trying to overpower her, anyway.
Wallace’s only concern was what might happen if she succeeded in
neutralizing Robert Warden on her first attempt. He’d have to be
sure that didn’t take place. It was bad enough that there seemed to
be several conflicting layers of orders. And no, he had not been
privy to all of them, apparently.

۞

Robert Warden was still on his
quiet island. He knew what storm lurked some distance away, and yet
he remained. It was what he desired. His wife and children were
gone. Very soon, he expected the difficulty of his brother-in-law
to be gone as well. Only a few of his soldiers were left behind
with him; the rest were mobilizing in anticipation of a muster and
practice maneuvers.

His board members were aware that
something new was in the offing. As far as they were concerned, it
only pertained to the threat that had heretofore been contained
within the metal box. As far as they knew, his only aim was to kill
Maeve Howard and her companions. There would have been far too much
anxiety and discussion if he had revealed his full agenda
prematurely.

Instead, only his top ranking
officers knew that what appeared to be a military exercise was
anything but. Warden had worked quietly and efficiently through the
course of a decade to build up a loyal and dependable army. That
army soon would enact his agenda. Those that opposed him would be
removed. The Earth system would finally be brought to
heel.

None of this had happened quickly.
It had been in opposition to his nature and impetuous inclinations.
The first time around, reckless zealousness had been the downfall.
He had learned to bide his time, amass wealth and power; become an
expert at illusion and patience. He had learned to wait.

In some ways, he saw himself as a
crocodile hidden in the muddy banks of a swollen river. Like
cobras, those creatures were experts in stillness. They might
appear to be something other than what they were, something
harmless, tempting the weak into drawing too close. He closed his
eyes, amber crocodilian eyes, and sank into the fantasy of snapping
massive jaws shut around his enemies. It was a pleasing thought.
And all that was required was a bit more waiting.

His breathing turned ragged, and
he realized that he was aroused. It was not unusual, but he was
never quite able to decide whether he should indulge the impulse or
not. He walked over to an oil lamp that had been burning for
several days now, and held a small metal rod over its flame. Once
it began to smoke, he rolled the object back and forth, finally
withdrawing it, and placing the hot end on the bare skin of his
bicep. It was both a reminder to stay on task, and a means of
releasing the pent up energy. The pounding of his heart slowed back
to a more reasonable rate.

It would not be long
now.

۞

“This is the most insane idea you
have ever had.” Antonio was having increasing thoughts of running
away.

“I know. What other option do we
have?” Wallace looked over at Leif. They had already discussed and
come to a tense agreement on a plan.

“And what do we do if there are
further permutations of this programming?”

“Meaning?”

“What do we do if she goes really
dark and scary, man? Are you prepared for that?”

“Antonio, I respect your opinion
on this, I really do. I think what we’re going to have to do is
split up, to be honest. You go with Jules, and head to Peru.
Whoever wants to go with me…and Maeve…we’ll head straight for the
Aegean.”

“That’s more grabass than plan,
Wallace.”

“No, he’s right. I’m going with
them too. The rest of you get back to this little hideout in the
jungle. The old guy will help us figure out what to do after that,
right?”

“Leif! No way, no way! We’re not
going to let you guys go off and get yourselves killed!” Grace was
not into this plan at all. Wallace held up his hand to silence
everyone. Julieta frowned in surprise, but patted Grace’s hand to
keep her from interrupting further.

“That’s not going to happen.
Whatever else she might have been programmed to do, she’s not going
to harm either of us.”

“Yes, but will
she keep you
from
harm?”

“I guess we’ll have to watch our
own butts.”

“You seem to know a little
something, there Wallace.” Leif was eyeing him
suspiciously.

“Yeah…we’ve spent two years
studying up on all of this. It’s about time I stopped screwing
around and do my job, that’s all.” He did not meet anyone’s stare,
standing instead to go and brief Colonel Tarkington. He left,
looking older than he ever had before. Grace poked her finger
toward the door through which he had just exited.

“That guy is not telling us
everything.” Grace was serious for once. Julieta
scoffed.

“He’s a goof-off. I can’t believe
he retained anything Kun taught us.” She shook her head at the
credulity of some people, even though she very much enjoyed sitting
very close to this one person. Indignantly, Grace stood up and
turned around to face all of them.

“I may not have
a college degree, but I graduated with honors from the school of
bullshit detection. He is lying to us about something. Something
big. I never really paid attention to it before, but it’s always
been there. Why
was
he there?”

“I dunno. He was trying to get
back to her, make himself feel better. His daddy must have pulled
all those strings, in spite of what he said.”

“No, not the Arctic. Where you
guys were stationed before that. How did he just happen to stumble
on board a military base and meet somebody who later on just
happened to become part of a programming experiment? I guess it
took being a few more paces back from the painting to see
everything in focus….”

Leif had a dazed expression
plastered across his face, his mouth working over the theory in a
mute conversation with himself. Everyone else alternatingly frowned
or tried to rebut this strange theory. None of them
could.

“So…what role could he possibly be
playing? Who did he work for?”

“The daddy rule still applies. His
old man was hardcore, and liked the cold war stuff. I met him a few
times…he was no joke.”

“You think his own father
recruited him?”

“Could be. Well, look, this is
just a lot of guessing. I’m not solid behind the idea that Fergus
Wallace is or was some kind of spook. He’s just too much of a….”
Leif had stopped cold.

“You see? You
see what you did there? You just blew up your own argument
against
.” Boom. Grace
sat back in satisfaction.

“I don’t get it. What did he do
there?” Antonio was beginning to have a frantic edge to his voice.
There was far too much crazy stuff going on of late. He supposed it
was too late to finally tell them that he’d only volunteered
because of the pay rate it had promised. His plan had always been
to use it to finance his own internet startup. The internet was
probably long gone by now.

“He’s playing the Scarlet
Pimpernel.” Josh smiled. Then he shook his head and
stopped.

“Playboy millionaire.” Grace
tapped the table in further satisfaction. Josh waved her
off.

“He’s not butch enough for that
kind of acting.”

“Please. Don’t go giving me
visions of him in any kind of tights. Let’s get back to reality. Or
unreality.” Julieta was annoyed by all this talk. Wallace was
anything but complex. He was an infant. Grace looked at her with a
little bit of sadness.

“Yeah, sure.
Reality is this: s
he
is going to come looking for us soon.
He
is playing us all.
We
are going to get our
asses handed to us.”

“We’re not going to let that
happen. We’ll split up, like he says. Leif is more than capable of
handling Wallace. The rest of us will go back and try to get the
truth out of your Master Kun.”

“Whoa, Josh, who says Kun knows
any of this? We’re taking some pretty big leaps of logic, as far as
I can see.”

“Jules, I understand that you
don’t want to go down this road. Maybe his intentions have been
honest, but we’re going to have to realize that he might have his
orders too.”

“And us? Our orders? Why are we
going along with any of this anymore? Any orders we had died with
the guys who gave them!” They were losing Antonio to panic. This
was the problem with civilians….

“Or the girls. Don’t forget them,
Tonio.”

“Could you stop fooling around,
Grace? Just tell me why the hell I should be going along with
this?”

“I’d be happy
to.” Julieta gripped the arm of the chair she was perched on. “If
we don’t do something, this whole system will be at war, very
shortly. We’ve been seeing it coming for a while. Oh, maybe Warden
has told his investors and cronies that he wants only to go so far
as shutting the borders. But we have
seen
what is coming. If I’d doubted
it, Boko put those doubts to rest.” She stood, and began to pace,
hoping it wouldn’t be difficult to convince them. “Warden plans on
extermination on a mass scale, as a means of luring in outside
worlds to open war. War is big business, but more than that, he
wants to push the human race as the dominant species as far out as
he can go.”

In reality, they were only
theorizing this. Julieta felt that it was time to lay it on the
line, though. Grace frowned. There was probably something to say
that was both wise and reassuring. She just couldn’t summon it up.
She preferred being a wiseass.

“Suicide mission, yay!”

“I think we pretty much knew that
already.” Julieta sighed and fell back into a nearby
chair.

“I know.” She frowned. “It just
sounds less doom and gloomy when you say ‘yay!’ at the
end.”

Josh waited for a few moments to
sidle up to Leif. He was hoping to talk some sense into his friend,
though it was unlikely.

“Hey.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Maybe I should go with you. Girls
can handle themselves. They’re not headed into the kill
box.”

“What are you worried
about?”